


Requisite Abilities

by homecriticismchef



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: F/M, Five Plus One, Year 0, apocalypse from the nosebleeds, competence/lack thereof, prologue characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:31:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6750331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homecriticismchef/pseuds/homecriticismchef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"... and I'll have to live on my sister's farm and I don't know how to do anything." </p>
<p>Five things Michael Madsen didn't know how to do, and one thing he knew he had to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requisite Abilities

1

_Year 0, almost summer_

Michael had never considered himself a master chef, but he did know how to cook. Once. When it involved looking up recipes online or trying one from the paper, getting ingredients from the grocery store, using a stove top and oven that did not involve more wood than it took to make a stirring spoon at any point -

Anyway. He didn't not know how to cook, so much as he had lost the ability to cook as he'd been accustomed.

But, as spring came on - with its comparatively gentle rain, with its almost reasonable sunrise and sunsets that left them almost enough time to get everything done without lighting an indecent percentage of the household lamps - and they had all survived the winter, not always happy and increasingly without hope for the outside world's prospects but always intact, and together (sappy as that sounded) - it felt like it was time to celebrate.

And time to see if he could cook like a barbarian, because he sort of missed the self-sufficiency of it. Besides, if he was going to be stuck there forever - and everybody knew now, the alternatives were much worse, even if the coastal patrols didn't catch you leaving - he had a lot to learn before he really pulled his weight.

(It was the sort of thing he and Signe had started talking about - sometimes late at night, sometimes when they were just working in proximity to each other, playfully criticizing each other because it was still the way they offered to help. What they'd gotten used to, comfortable with, what was still uncomfortable or outright disgusting. Who had showed them what already, how hard it was to keep track of what always had to get done and what might need doing. That this was the future they probably had to prepare for now, and at the end of the winter all of the small parts piled up to hide, sometimes, that the unexpectedness of that future didn't make it a bad one. Just a little confusing.

Anyway, spring came, outdoor cooking promised to replace endless soups and dangerously salty preserved food stores - and he decided he would, without a question, roast one of the pigs for everyone to share.

As long he didn't have to slaughter the pig, which he didn't - and probably wouldn't, if he avoided learning that particular skill. Tasty as they were, he couldn't stand the sounds they made when they _weren't_ dying. Death squeals up close had to be worse.

* * *

The theory was sound: Get the firepit going. Mix up some brine like, but not identical to, what they'd submerged the bits of pig destined to become spring ham in last fall. (Pretty good hams; nothing he hadn't expected from previous experience, but not magically any better now that he knew how the whole thing worked.) No sugar needed in normal pig brine, Marianne had said.

He hadn't been thrilled about using two fireplace pokers shoved into opposite ends as the spit - rotisserie? - but he didn't know of any readily available options other than wood, and he had fortunately caught on to the issue there pretty quickly. Some of the disgusting hay had dried out enough to serve as kindling, and he had the flames looking pretty respectable by mid-afternoon.

He balked when Marianne offered him a syringe to inject the brine, because it wasn't clean - it was boiled.

"That's not the same thing! How is that safe?"

"It's completely sterile! And it's the best you're going to get. What were you planning to do, pour saltwater over it and hope really hard?"

Signe, putting down a notebook (he didn't know what she was writing down, hopefully nothing too embarrassing though), came over and looped their elbows together. "What have you used it for before?"

"It doesn't make a difference, Signe, it's -"

"I'm just curious! Help me learn?" That smile. The woman wasn't even trying to hide her lies.

But Marianne chuckled. "Fine, it was a blood draw for the food safety people. Who then gave me some very detailed sterilization tips because we're not going to get more of these for .. " her expression darkened. She replaced any sort of end to the sentence with a wavy chop of her hand.

Signe shrugged. "Were any of the blood tests positive for - bad things?" For once, that didn't mean the rash. Probably. Just that Signe didn't know what they'd be testing the samples for any more than he did.

"All clean. Just some vitamin deficiencies."

"So - the brine might have traces of blood in it, when we shove the needle into the dead pig's meat and through its dried blood vessels?"

"It really doesn't - oh!" Marianne pointed - first at Signe, then him. "Listen to your girlfriend. Use the needle. Remember that life here is gross but can still be very, very safe."

"Very reassuring." He couldn't help glaring.

"I try, little brother."

Injecting brine into the dead pig really wasn't too disgusting. Just a little, mostly if he thought about it too much.

Roasting the thing wasn't too bad. He got everything propped up - Morten, wandering by, offered to fetch a few more bricks to brace the ends of the pokers in place - got out a book (a guide to basic carpentry. Confusing, but not as dull as staring into space), and decided to turn the spit every ten pages.

He forgot to do that, when his mind wandered off; and it took a while after that forgetting for the great, hunger-inspiring scent wafting his way to turn alarmingly _singed_.

He yelped, loudly enough for Signe to wake up from an apparent nap over her notebook, and for a few others to come running. He grabbed for a poker, recoiled from the heat (how was it _so_ hot?), and had to run into the house to fetch two oven mitts, hoping very hard that a few of his family members liked crispy meat.

The pig had actually been sagging, it seemed, into the flames a little too deeply. So he deduced after fifteen minutes or so of very carefully watching, not letting himself be distracted at all - though maybe he shouldn't have told Signe to move her nap to his shoulder, because he was going to have to move eventually. Or sooner, because wow that was some dramatic sagging there.

He didn't want to have to shout for help, but -

"Morten?"

Maybe calling softly would do?

"What is it?" Signe murmured.

"The pig is falling into the fire."

"Oh." She shifted - he glanced down, but couldn't tell if her eyes had opened.

"I want Morten to come fix it. MORTEN! Sorry," he added as she jerked at the sound.

"Sure you are." She was peeking at the fire, light-shy. "Oh. Is the skewer broken?"

"Not really. It's two pokers."

Apparently Morten had trained as a ninja at some point, because he spoke up from right behind them. "You used pokers? Like from the fireplace?" Michael turned back just in time to see his brother throw the empty basket he'd been toting to the ground, and run back toward the house. Again. "I'll get you a tray, and we'll fix it in a minute. Just keep that thing out of the fire!" He really had started running back by the end of that lecture.

He and Signe did as told, if fumblingly; ultimately Morten produced a long metal rod from the shed, washed it down and ran it through the flames to clean it (at Mathilde's insistence - which was Michael's first hint that this rescue effort had drawn a crowd). It replaced the pokers, a bit messily but without sending any hot debris too far from the tray.

In hindsight, it was hilarious. And a learning experience.

That night, he was just glad the thing got done by sunset - and that only about 15% of it was overdone, which he was pretty sure he would have been hungry enough to eat all alone even if his family hadn't been sporting (or desperate) enough to help him.

As night fell and he watched the fire die down, Mathilde tapped him on the shoulder, said "You are so lucky - I think Marianne would kill you if you'd wasted an entire pig." She said that _through a mouthful of pork_.

"We're such cavemen now," he lamented, when she'd moved on.

"True," Signe said. "We have the fire and everything."

Something about her tone said she wasn't looking at the fire at all - when he looked over, it was true. She was looking at the sky, which wasn't clear but still managed to be hauntingly rich in stars in the gaps between the clouds. Not like before.

"Ah, well," he said, vaguely aware that was one of her verbal tics, not his. "If they could figure these things out, we can do it too."

* * *

2

_Year 0, very early spring_

The winter had been fairly warm - apparently - but it still dragged on, well into April. He was glad to be in a house that hadbuilt to keep its inhabitants alive without central heating, but it wasn't always what he'd consider comfortably warm even so.

Signe was worse off, and however glad he was not to be sleeping alone on these late winter nights (very glad), he almost could have suspected her of using him for his body heat if it weren't for, well, her bluntness and general approach to life otherwise.

Not that it stopped him from making the accusation a few times. When her feet were so damn cold they could have brought down swelling in a sprain. But he accepted the localized torture, because. Because.

But everyone was itching for signs of spring, and he found that he was itching for _anything_ to do. Cleaning, as cliche would have it. Pulling up the last, sad food stores; bartering some of them with the shady ex-warehouse workers down the street, and donating what else they could spare to a few of Marianne's friends, who hadn't had as much help getting through last fall's ... complications.

Cleaning out the small but horrible barn, and its dirty, if not outright disgusting, leftover hay.

That was another way to itch.

And sneeze. He thought, after the first clouds of dust his shoveling stirred up, that there must be a better way to do this. A cleaner way - well, no, but at least a way that would keep the dirt within a meter of the floor, rather than sending it up into his face.

None of the methods he tried were cleaner.

Also, apparently he had put hay that was supposed to stay dry under a part of the roof that leaked - so when it rained a few days later, Per (who had spent enough time there that winter notice these things about the barn, because he actually liked horses; Michael started thinking again that he actually hated Per) dragged him out to move it to a different wall, as quickly as possible (so the dust was everywhere). If there was a better way, Per didn't know it either; but somehow the other man didn't sneeze once. Bastard.

At least the rain came down hard enough on them to wash most of the dust off, that time. Though when he woke up the next morning, the inside of his nose still itched.)

* * *

3

_Year 0, winter_

The winter was half over, at least. February meant - well, at this point it meant doing a little more repair work, with a little less fresh food and much less light.

Or in his case and Signe's, it meant learning to do some repair work, in this case getting instruction from his mother on mending. He'd made some barely-decent progress on an ugly but thick blanket, but Signe had spent the whole afternoon trying to rehabilitate one of the kids' coats, stabbing at tears in its lining and leaning ever closer in the weak light, trying to improve her stitches - which had started out bad and stayed terrible. Now, in the evening, she was trying out desperate, increasingly twisted stretches to work out the stiffness from that. He watched, sympathetic but skeptical that those kind of jerky contortions would do anything good for her muscles. Some were pretty watchable in other ways, though.

"How did you ever sit hunched over a desk all day?" she whined, muffled by her kneecap, in one of those interesting poses.

"I always had a good chair. Ergonomic and classy."

"I don't believe you."

She stood up, and braced herself on the windowsill behind her to arch her back. Took nice deep breaths.

They delayed his answer a "I can't believe you never had a desk job." He reconsidered that. "Wait, yes I can."

"I had one once, it just didn't last."

"Here." He stood and crossed the room, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and guided her to the bed to sit down, back where he had been. "If we only had a massage chair, you'd understand that some luxuries made my desk job worth keeping."

"They bought you massage chairs?"

"Yes." Well, it was just the one, and he'd only used it on the sly. But how would she know? "Now you'll have to settle." He nudged her to face away from him, and tried to think of a polite phrasing, then decided there was no such thing when it came to him and Signe anyway. "Take off your sweater."

She didn't look at him, just disrobed. The top layer of robe. She still had a t-shirt on, with some band's tour dates listed on the back. So she'd upgraded that from her sleep shirt? "You're really going to give me a shoulder rub?"

"Or a full backrub, if you'd rather. Which I think you would." She nodded, and he stroked her hair.

"Where'd you learn that particular skill?"

"It can't be that hard to figure out. It's rubbing. A back." He planted his palms on her shoulders, squeezed, and smiled a little as she instantly relaxed.

He tried a few circles with his thumbs, which seemed to be successfully soothing; moved up toward her neck, tried a quick pincer motion - and she yelped.

"Michael!" That followed in more of a hiss.

He pulled his hands away, then considered - the small circles had been good, so maybe if he used the heels of his hands for slightly bigger, but still gentle pressure, down to her shoulder blades and back - "Better, right?"

"Sure, but you're kind of just pushing me forward and back now. Maybe if -"

He'd started chuckling halfway through that, because of the way her voice was wobbling as she rocked back and forth; by the end of it, he gave up and buried his face against the back of her neck.

And wait - was she laughing too? And then sighing. "Okay, move that down," she said.

He shifted his head to rest on her shoulder. "Move what down?"

"Oh no, is this massage chair broken?"

"You're saying I need to laugh-massage you?"

"If it's the best you can do. Which it seems to be."

"Well, you'll just have to make me laugh."

Ultimately, she seemed to decide he'd be more effective as a warm compress that night.

* * *

4

_Year 0, Christmas days_

  
He didn't know how to celebrate Christmas after the end of the world, but at least he wasn't the only one.

And he wasn't the craziest, which also helped.

Mathilde hadn't always been the most enthusiastic about Christmas when they were kids, to say the least. but now, maybe for Mette's sake, or maybe as a way to cope with enhanced winter isolation, she was intensely in the spirit of the season. So intensely that Michael didn't even dare to try the "signs of the apocalypse" joke on anyone but Signe - who, of course, would have no frame of reference for any Madsen's reaction to the holidays.

Granted, he probably wouldn't have recognized himself. One week, he was suckered into helping Mathilde make a calendar candle out of the household's ever increasing store of stubs. (He escaped with just a few burns, somehow. The candle wasn't too bad looking.) The next, he was scrambling around for festive (or at least not hideous and filthy) paper the kids could cut into decorations (and supervising that cutting, because the available scissors were all a little less safe than the ones he remembered).

Marianne had dithered about whether it was right or fair to try to find a real tree for so long that Karla woke them all up, two days before Christmas Eve, bearing just what must be the top quarter of a neighbor's tree, and a footstool to prop it on.

"It's better than nothing," Signe commented - quietly, as Marianne surrendered to the compromise and gave her girlfriend a thank-you kiss. And in fact, once they dug out some garlands and a tree skirt, it was almost not pathetic at all.

A few of the neighbors came around, with precious bottles of beer or - once - schnapps. It wasn't until then that Michael realized just how much Marianne must have done to help some of those neighbors in a pinch, as they all had a cryptically confusing "thank you for" or "just a little in return for" along with their gifts. They'd settle in for a round, a piece of cake or cookies (usually cookies - those were much easier to get right in a wood stove) - a lot of the flour in town had been about to go stale, apparently, and hey. It was Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Karla had dug that manual camera of hers out, plus a flash assembly of some kind so she could waste less film in the low light. Where she'd found it, he didn't ask, because -

"Does that need batteries?"

"Oh, yeah," she waved him off. "But just the two. I swiped them from the radio."

"We might want those."

"Really?" Candles or no, he could read the look on her face easily enough: _when, exactly, are you planning to try again? When do you want to risk hearing just silence_ or _the noise?_ And he was already suppressing a shudder, both at the memory of those last words they'd all heard and the sounds that were not exactly words at all, or only hints of words wrapped up in inhuman screams. That had been the night Karla came by, in the process of touring the island to photograph the crisis (or lack of it) while she was stranded there; and had been either spooked or simply tired enough to take Signe's spot on the couch. (Not that she'd stayed down there very long, once she and Marianne hit it off.)

Still, her cannibalizing the batteries from the radio  like that bothered him. "It's - technically our last connection to the mainland. It's irresponsible to -"

"Signe said it was fine." Karla had dropped her voice, but still managed her interruption just fine. "And since she and I are the ones - without family here..."

Without, probably, family left alive anywhere else at this point. One of those things Signe never said, that he'd never asked -"Okay," he said, finally.

Probably, he should have said something about the Madsens being Karla's family now - and Signe's - but it didn't really seem like the time. So he wished her luck with the pictures instead, and turned back to where - despite pretty much every other adult's protests - Mathilde was lighting candles in a ring around the base of the tree (or rather, its footstool stand). Behind her, Signe was creeping in with various small containers full of water.

(Magnus examined the first few carefully, then made his selection and began to drink noisily).

They woke up early, all of them, and watched Mette and Marcus open up the odd array of new-bartered and attic-scavenged gifts their parents, aunts, uncles, and whatever Mette was supposed to consider Per, had found for them. They took it well, Michael thought - though they'd be fighting over the new markers by the end of the day, at latest, because they were kids. And Madsens.

The adults in the group had agreed to forgo gifts, this year, to keep things simple; and since none of them had any idea whether there would be non-lethal schnapps the next year, they toasted - to everything they could think of, or at least every faint hope they could think of, make fun of, and try not to doubt too fully.

"To the end of a hard year."

"To togetherness!"

It was all so corny, and so necessary. When a few of them toasted too hard and clumsily ("to making do!"), drenching the bowl of nuts in the center of the table, he proposed a toast "to not spilling precious resources!" - and he'd almost stopped noticing who said what, but that one was his - but Signe, who'd been just a little too quiet, so obviously not herself, finally made a sound. The short, definitely more than tipsy laugh she managed wasn't a pretty or long-lived sound, but it was from her, so it was precious enough.

* * *

5

_Year 0, late autumn_

Sure, he had known what he was doing at first - he was trying to be nice.

And maybe, in some way, to hold onto a stray bit of hope that life might ever get back to normal.

Actually, pass on normal, he just wanted life to get back to minimally horrific. He'd been stressed and irritable, sure, but nothing was more annoying than watching (hearing, hearing vague rumours about ) the world's collapse around you.

And sure, at least he had a family; she very possibly didn't, now. (He tried not to pry, and she wasn't saying much - to him, at least. But he'd heard her using Mathild's phone a few times, the first few days she was there. Twice after that, he'd seen her make calls that obviously never got answered. (He'd just happened to need a drink himself after that second time, and she'd taken advantage of his strategic inattention to refill her own glass a couple of times.)

So much for things working out in the end.

Anyway, his family. They read so much into the situation, and while he had (he told himself) expected it completely, somehow he'd thought they would get the picture once his particular refugee/houseguest had arrived. Or if they didn't get the picture right away it should be obvious once they got to know her that he had been trying to be charitable - no, but at least just _hospitable_ \- to an acquaintance in need. Nothing else. His motives were perfectly above board.

So Per, the latest of Mathilde's  _always likeable_ boyfriends, the same one as last year - he could just cut it out with the comments about Michael being "distracted" all the time, or needing to "keep his eyes on his hands" when they were putting up sheet insulation and Signe came in to worn on something else. Whatever she was doing, she needed a step stool.

He told Per that even low ladders were supposed to have a spotter,though he kept to himself that at least he wouldn't keep putting his thumb in grave peril under Per's nail gun if he was just standing around playing safety inspector on the other side of the room. Besides, Per didn't need much more bracing, did he? And Michael didn't need to pay any notice to the look on Per's face when he said so. Or to any further meaningful looks the guy sent his way.

At least his actual blood relations were more genteel about it. "So, you met on the ferry and just - connected?"

"We had an argument. She was very unprofessional. Then later we had a conversation."

"... all right." Awkward silence. "About what?"

"Magnus." And about his being fired, of course, and the travel restrictions, and how neither of them had gone anywhere interesting in a few years.

"Oh, he seems to like her, doesn't he?" Winking ensued.

A few more days, and there was Marianne herself cornering him to say - as gently as you could say something tactless, as was her style - that nobody would mind if Signe moved off of the couch at night.

"There's nowhere to put another bed, is there?" Maybe he didn't sell the innocent tone well. Not his fault, when she was the one implying things.

She sighed, but smiled sweetly. "She said the same thing. You don't have to hide anything!"

"Good, because there's nothing to hide! And nowhere to hide it, any more than there's room for an extra bed!"

(That last conversation didn't settle anything, but it did make him wonder if it wasn't getting a little too cold in the main room at night, now. He dug a few old blankets out of his closet - the one with rocketships and astronauts, he grimaced at and swapped with the less embarrassing plain one he'd been using since he moved back in - and hauled them downstairs, stumbling in the meagre lamplight, and left them at the foot of the couch before the now-habitual chamomile tea session she had with (some sisters) had broken up.)

Fewer questions, more quizzical looks; fewer coy chuckling looks, more intrusive questions. ("Is she not interested?" Or "when will you stop leading her on?" The second was definitely more flattering.) It was a cycle, for two weeks, sputtered into a third as winter and their still-bland routines of farm life settled in, surprisingly pleasant changes when he looked at them against the broad backdrop of the outside world's continued horrific collapse. (And compared to all that, why should a few questions get to him?)

Still. The damn questions. He was getting tired of deflecting them, but he persevered. Because they'd have to get the picture eventually.

 

* * *

 

+1

_Year 0 - but just barely._

A week could be so much shorter, when you spent it with absolutely all of your loved ones.

Did he say shorter? He meant _longer_. Admittedly, he was spending it with loved ones who, happily or not, were just as trapped as he was on an island in the middle of its rainy descent into winter. Who were not always loud and restless, but who were numerous enough that somebody in the room was always, always talking.

Not that he had anything to do. He tried to help out, as he could, but of course he'd been right when he told that boat servant - Signe - that he didn't know how to do anything on a farm. He could wash things, and sit around letting anyone else who came through the main room know when somebody else had just been looking for them. He could, and did, right the ever-wobbling umbrella stand approximately five times a day.

And he listened to the radio. Because it, unlike his other potential options for news and entertainment, ran on batteries, and Bornholm was trying to be proactive with power rationing until the rash crisis passed - which, frankly, was not looking likely to happen this month. And once recovery started, well ... everything would be up in the air for much longer than a week. Maybe that had always been inevitable, and it was just getting harder to for him to pretend otherwise. He was just as happy _not_ thinking about the extended future too much. (He was still not very happy.)

The stranded tourists and visitors weren't even mentioned in any of the broadcasts until his sixth night on the island, at which point he was vaguely amused to learn that anyone who'd had a hotel room had been allowed to stay (because who else was going to show up ready to pay for it?), while a few others joined them in a dwindling number of rooms until other accommodations could be arranged.

They interviewed a reporter - of course - for some gourmet magazine, who'd been looking into local cheeses all over Europe for a year. (Eating and writing about local _cheeses_ , that was the guy's life before.) Stranded in Rønne by the travel restrictions, the man said he'd been fairly lucky to have a single room at the large Radisson booked that night.  
_"The family rooms are full now - they wanted to keep a few new arrivals on one floor, in a sort of quarantine, and now that's the last floor they can still keep the lights on for. The lower three are all we have."_  
 _"So it's not looking good for any misplaced persons if the crisis drags on longer, is it?"_  
 _"I don't think we'll be left without shelter, but I don't know where we can move next week. That's the rumored eviction date. I hope the crisis passes tomorrow, of course." Stilted staticy laughter, five kinds of forced._  
 _"As we all do. Thank you. With -"_

It was the first time he remembered Signe's comment about the ferry staff's prospects, sleeping on benches - which was a little unfortunate for him. If he'd thought about it before, he probably would have worked it out himself that they'd have to have been put somewhere less ... afloat, especially once the storm of a few nights ago had kicked up fully. Had he considered it before, he could have had halfheartedly sympathetic thoughts, hoped they all stayed safe and out of everyone else's way, and peacefully forgotten all about it by now.

  
This way, he couldn't do it. Sure, Signe was probably packed into a suite with six other people, limited to half a bed and maybe a thirty second shower every day, while they all nervously watched each other for any sign of developing rash. And by now she'd probably be getting so mouthy that whoever was watching over the whole situation would forget all humanitarian concerns and kick her out onto the street.

Okay, _that_ probably wouldn't happen.

But he did ask at the nearest shop, the next day, where he might get a list of hotel phone numbers. Everything in the area, he said.  He walked out with a sad relic of a glossy guide, printed three years before, and an attached post-it note with the number of one place that had moved. The bored, not-so-professional-looking kid who worked there told him they had a whole stack on hand, even though no one ever asked in this part of town. (He hadn't asked. He was just glad that part worked out with minimal fuss.) 

But after that he _really_ had no excuse not to track her down - although he didn't even have a last name to go on, and the closest he could get to an identifying detail was "she was working on the Bornholm ferry. Barely." So he started calling.

The second front desk receptionist asked him - not, he'd have to say, unwisely - what his relationship to her was. "Oh, um, I ..." Magnus, the genius, jumped onto the table in front of him. "Her cat! I have her cat with me, right now! I was keeping it safe for her. _Good boy,"_ he added in a lower voice, scratching behind those adorable ears.

"You've been keeping her cat for a week?"

"She ... didn't want to keep it at the hotel? Or they don't allow pets. Do you allow pets?"

"Yes. So she must not be a guest here."

He hoped that was true, grimaced, and tried to fine-tune the cat story before he tried the fourth number on his list.

Two more calls. Why couldn't she just have been at the big hotel with the cheese reporter?

But finally, there was a helpful desk agent. Concierge? Whoever. She looked cheerfully over the list, confirmed the guest - "well, ha, but they're still sort of guests" - and he didn't care too much that the ensuing giggle was laced with a receiver-popping snort, because she offered to try patching him through right away.

Good thing he wasn't a creepy stalker of some kind, though.

The room phone had an archaic ring, or six of them actually, but when a harried, breathless "hello?" finally stopped them, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Signe? This is Michael Madsen - if you remember, from the ferry?"

Of course she would remember. Right?

A week of seconds seemed to pass, though.

"Oh, with the cat! And the farmer sister. Yes?"

_Yes!  
_

"How's that working out? Have you stopped crying yet?"

"I have," he answered. "Because I'm with my loving family now, and absolutely nobody has been around to be rude and dismissive of my concerns this entire week." He took a deep breath. "How are _you_ doing?"

"In a hotel. It's luxurious and fantastic." She was half-shouting, at that last word, over a burst of inchoate noise in the background. "And serene!" she added.

"Well, then," he half-shouted back. "I guess you wouldn't need another place to stay anytime soon?"

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the many inaccuracies and improbabilities that probably popped up if you know anything about farm life (or Denmark): I don't know how to do any of these things either.
> 
> Karla the traveling photographer, and a few family headcanons, are direct imports from the first time I tried to write about this lot. I hope they, uh, translate to this version of the Madsen milieu!


End file.
